Hyderabad: By now everyone has dissected the Hyderabad Metro Rail proposals threadbare and aired their views, either against or in favour of the project. But there’s one man who has done a PhD on it and came up with some really interesting suggestions. Sample this: “The elevated rail near the State Assembly would be about 50ft high. There are a lot of safety concerns when the session is on. So, better if the legislators get a new Assembly on the outskirts of the city.”
The man in question is Dr Kanagala Rajkumar, secretary to Anurag Sharma, Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad. He was awarded his doctorate this year, after two years of research. The 58-year-old, who hails from Khammam, had joined the Police department in 1974. “Dr K Venkatesh, director, Bengaluru branch of the Einstein International University, Florida was on an official visit to the commissionerate when I had an opportunity to interact with him. It was he who had suggested that I do a PhD program under him. It was a combination of Executive MBA and Doctorate in Management in 3 years. HMR was the obvious choice,” he recalls. His research topic was the Evolution of Metro Rail in India with specific study on Hyderabad Metro Rail.
For his research, Rajkumar had studied and surveyed metro rail projects in the country including Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. “Cities might differ in geography, economy etc but the problems faced are the same everywhere. Traffic management and rehabilitation are the biggest issues,” he points out. He chose not to touch controversies, including financial aspects, but tried to study the issue from an administrative angle. “My focus was only to find out how it is going to reach the common man. I have studied the pulse of the public. What are the problems they face, their worries and concerns,” he explains. However, the task of carrying out a nation-wide survey and inspecting metro rail works in different cities was not easy. “During the course of my survey, I sent 1600 questionnaires to the general public, bureaucrats, politicians, students etc in different parts of the country. The outcome of my survey was that everyone wants metro rail in their cities,” he says.
In the case of Hyderabad, he believes, the only solution to the traffic problem is metro rail. “Problems may be temporary, but solution has to be permanent. We have lakhs of vehicles on road at present, and after five years, vehicular traffic will just double,” he points out.
Suggestions
Under the present map of Hyderabad metro rail, one corridor ends at Nagole and another ends at LB Nagar. The distance between these two places is around 2 km. “I do not understand why these two places cannot be connected by metro rail. Currently, HMR plans to make use of other modes of transport to connect these places for the commuters and I suggested to them to consider a connection between these two stations so that it becomes more efficient,” Rajkumar recalls.
Being from the police department, he cannot help examining the security issues. “The elevated rail near the State Assembly would be about 50ft high. There are a lot of safety concerns when the session is on,” fears Rajkumar who has also sent his thesis to all the metro rail corporations in the country. He believes shifting the Assembly to the outskirts would be better.
Observations
He believes that the metro rail will bridge the gap between the Old City and the other parts of Hyderabad. “The Hyderabad metro rail will connect all parts of the city better than ever before. This city is very old and highly unplanned. Even second tier cities like Vizag and Vijayawada would need metro rail in due course of time,” he says. He also opines that with the operations of metro rail starting in three years, a trend would be set among public to leave their vehicles at stations and go to office by metro.
“Metro rail is cheaper, faster, safer, and a time saving mode of transport. In cities like Delhi, people have cut down on the usage of their personal vehicles after metro rail started. They could park vehicles at the nearest metro station while going for work,” explains. Rajkumar adding that it would be next to impossible to further wide the roads in the Old City to accommodate increasing traffic.
With his retirement due in 85 days, Rajkumar, who also authored a book 'Sri Sai Vageeswari' on Shiridi Sai Baba, plans to devote his life ahead for spirituality and service. Besides that, he would like to research another topic. No prizes for guessing what that is, though he is reluctant to reveal it.
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